Let's give it some credit. Batman & Robin is an awful movie, but it's an intentionally awful movie. It's clear that by this point in the series nobody was takening the movie's seriously, so I suppose that Joel Schumaker figured the audince shouldn't either.
Big mistake. The movie died at the box office and recieved horrid reviews. It was so bad that new Batman George Clooney said that he would personally refund the admission price of anyone theatregoer who asked him.
Let's start on with positive side. George Clooney is an improvement over Val Kilmar (although he's still a far cry from Michael Keaton), Michael Gough, a very talented British characer actor, is given some interesting scenes as Alfred, the butler. There are three or four jokes in the film that are funny (out of about 200). The cinemataography has bright colors that are fun to look at. Okay, that's everything.
Now the problems. If you are going to Batman as a comedy, you'd better do it full out like the old TV show, not half-assed like Schumaker. The movie tries to straddle the line between having "exciting" action sequences, real character scenes, and farcicle comedy, and fails at all three. There is also a real feeling that we are getting into the second string of villians. Mr. Freeze (Gov. Arnold Schwarztenegger, R-California) and Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) are a long way from The Joker and Catwoman. Thurman is a great actress (Tarintino accuratley compared her to a modern-day Marlene Dietrich), but really any actress could have slinked around like Mae West and tell bad, bad jokes involving plants. Arnold is his usual charming self.
Another problem of the Batman series is that each film tries to outdo the last. The first and best had a hero and a villian, the second had a hero and two villians, the third had two heroes and two villians, and this one has three heroes and three villians. The third hero is Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone). I know that Schumaker is gay, but couldn't he have at least cast a hot actress like Winona Ryder as Batgirl? I felt that Silverstone and the leather was a missed oppurtinity.
The third villian is Bane (Jeep Swenson). Based on my research (A.K.A. internet search) I found that Batman fans were particularly angered at the treatment of this character. In fact, Batman fans seem to hate this movie, my friend Brooke, a hardcore Batmaniac told me the movie sucked. She is right.
Who is this movie made for, then? Not fans of the ultra-serious comic boook. Not action fans or teenagers, who were going to be turned off by stupid humor. Perhpas really young kids might have gone for it, but if you are going to make a kid's movie why include all the sexual innuendo? I know that Kristen and Tiffany would have appreciated of all the shots of shirtless musclemen oiled up, but I didn't.
There is one bit of trivia that I want to share before I close that shows how completly out to lunch Shumaker and Warner Brothers were. Before the film was released, the studio actually asked the director and Clooney to start preparing for another sequel, indicating that they thought this was going to be major hit. Who would be the villian in that? Tom Petty as the Mad Hatter?
Batman & Robin (1997)